Teacher's Guide

Gender, Religion and Caste

Part 2

Based on the NCERT Curriculum for Standard X

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC)

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Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 2

Gender, Religion and Caste | Teacher’s Guide (2/4) Part 2

Class X Board – CBSE Subject – Social Science Textbook –Democratic Politics-II for Class X (NCERT) Chapter 4 – Gender, Religion and Caste Number of parts – 04 Length – 70 to 90 minutes (estimated, for a class of 40-45 students) Note: Teachers may divide the lesson plan into as many periods as they see fit

Section I – What are we going to learn and why is it important?

Learning objectives

Students will:

• Infer that gender inequality can be tackled through policy level changes.

• Understand the benefits of women representation at different levels in politics.

• Identify ways to promote gender equality

Learning outcomes

Students will be able to:

• Develop a gender perspective on politics.

• Address issues of gender inequality at their own level within home, at school and in their neighbourhood.

Key Terms

Gender Feminism Patriarchy Patriarchal Society Representation of women in

Politics

Gender inequality Equal Remuneration Act

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 3

Materials required:

1. Projector for videos

2. Chart papers and sticky notes for opening session.

3. Chart papers for activity: taking the lead

Section II – How are we going to learn?

1. Opening Session: Building hook, Making connections

Time: 25 minutes

Materials required: Projector, chart paper, sticky notes/ post its

Note to the teacher:

In this activity, students look at four female characters in different contexts, and collectively brainstorm the opportunities and challenges that they

experience. Every student will write down challenges for all these characters individually on post-its/sticky notes and, later the class will discuss them

collectively. At the end of the exercise they come up with suggestive policy level changes as a solution to their challenges.

Facilitation notes:

• “Good Morning class, today I have brought with me my four friends.” Use the attached pictures to introduce the characters.

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 4

Source: SBS

Tania

• 28 years old

• Works in an MNC

• Is a Chartered Accountant

• Lives in Mumbai

Jaanvi

• 10 years old

• Lives in a village in Uttar

Pradesh

Shyama

• 20 years old

• Works in a bangle factory

• Lives in a village in

Karnataka

Zahira

• 14 years old

• Goes to a private school

• Lives in New Delhi

• “Meet Tania. She is 28-year-old, works in a multinational company in Mumbai as a Chartered Accountant. She shares a flat with two of her female

friends and takes the local train every day to commute. After work, she often hangs out with her friends and colleagues and goes back late home after

having her dinner.”

• “This is Shyama, she is 20-year-old and stays in a small village in Karnataka. In the absence of enough earnings at home, she had to take up a small job

at the bangle factory. Her parents are looking for a suitable match for her.”

• “This is Zahira, she is 14-year-old, and stays with her parents in New Delhi. Since both her parents are working and often have to travel, Zahira has to

manage her day mostly by herself, going to tuitions, football practice. Her house help, Rekha aunty comes every day in the evening to check on her.”

• “And this is Jaanvi, she is 10-year-old, she stays with her extended family in a village in Uttar Pradesh. She has two younger sisters and a brother and

goes to government school.”

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 5

• (The teacher now puts the four chart papers with the names of the four girls in four corners of the class)

• Here is your task. You are all given post its or sticky notes.

• Now for each of these characters, think about the problems these girls will face in their day to day lives. They are all different in their age, context,

and socio-economic backgrounds. Think about the many challenges they face. Write the respective challenge on your sticky note and then go and

paste it on the chart

• Take 10 minutes and think for as many of these characters as possible.

• Move around the class during the group discussion and encourage students to engage in inquiry. Go on to say, “You should ask your classmates as to

why they think something is a challenge for their character.”

• (Once the students have pasted the problems on the chart papers, bring all the chart papers to the front and ask everyone to settle down.)

• Now the teacher will take one character at a time and read out the challenges faced by her. She will then ask students what are the policy level

changes/ laws that can help ensure that these problems are minimized. Students will give suggestions for many of these problems.

• I will now discuss some of these challenges. I want you to think about what can be done at a policy level to tackle these challenges:

Character Potential problems the students may have written Potential policy changes

Taania • She may feel unsafe living alone with females.

• Coming back home from work alone at night can be dangerous.

• At work, she is not paid as well as men.

• Make stricter laws for women’s safety.

• Make it illegal to discriminate against women at

the workplace.

Shyama • Because of being a woman, she may not have gone to school.

• Her parents are worried about the dowry they will have to give

at her wedding.

• She may be facing harassment by men in her village.

• She may not be allowed to work after marriage.

• Abolish the dowry system.

• Make it easier for women to complain against

men who trouble them.

• Introduce vocational skilling programs that make

it easier for women to get jobs.

Zahira • She may not be allowed to play sports.

• Her parents don’t give her as much freedom as her brother.

• She cannot go out with her friends at night.

• Encourage sports for girls through government

schemes like sports scholarships, mandatory

clubs for girls in schools.

• Make it mandatory to have female sports teams

in schools.

Jaanvi • Girls in her village are often killed before or immediately after

birth.

• Abolish female foeticide and infanticide.

• Abolish child marriage/Levy heavy penalty/

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 6

• She is not allowed to go to school.

• Her parents are planning to get her married when she turns 15.

punishments for child marriage.

• Encourage parents to send more girls to school

by giving more scholarships to girls, subsidizing

girl child’s education etc.

De-brief:

• We all know that women face multiple problems in society. And not just in poor and backward areas, but also in rich, urban set ups, women are constantly faced with discrimination.

• In this activity, we also saw that, though not all problems, a lot of these problems can be solved with more gender sensitive policies.

2. Women for Women!

Time: 20 minutes

Materials required: Projector

Note to the teacher:

By now students have come to a common consensus that a lot of grave problems faced by women can be addressed through policies. In this section, they look

at a series of data and case studies that leads them to realise how ‘women cannot be represented by men’, and in order to make society equal and gender

sensitive, women need to be a part of politics as well.

Facilitation notes:

• “So far, we have concluded that these gender roles and gender issues can be rightfully challenged and eliminated by policy level changes. Now, let’s

move ahead to understand what it takes to create this level of change.”

• “How many of you know about school councils? Or unions? Show me with a raise of hand.”

• To the students who have raised hands, “What are these councils?”

• Take about 3-4 responses.

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

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• Using the responses of students say, “Both of these are some form of people representation, either representation of students or representation of

workers in an institute like the school or the company respectively.” Go on to ask them, “But, why do we need them? Can’t the institute function

without them?”

• Take another 2-3 responses. (lead the discussion towards the fact that if there are no student councils or unions, then a lot of the problems faced by

these groups will go unheard).

• Using the responses of students say, “Yes! You are right. These are created to give voice to the students or labor, so that they can share their

problems with the right people and work towards addressing them. After all, they know their challenges better than the teachers or the employers”.

• Ask them, “Do you agree to that?”

• Wait for some response.

• Well if that is the logic, I wonder what happened in Politics? Let’s go through three snippets of information now.

• I want two students to come and read out some information to students.

Student one: Women in politics: around the world

• Only 11.3% per cent of all Lok Sabha were women as of November 2018. • As of January 2019, 11 women are serving as Head of State and 10 are serving as Head of Government in the world. • Rwanda has the highest number of women parliamentarians worldwide. Women there have won 61.3 per cent of seats in the lower house. • Globally, there are 29 countries in which women account for less than 10 per cent of parliamentarians in single or lower houses, as of November

2018, including 4 chambers with no women at all. Source website: UN Women Facts and Figures

Student two: Women in India

• The literacy rate among women is only 54 per cent compared with 76 per cent among men. Similarly, a smaller proportion of girl students go for

higher studies. Female dropout rates are higher at all levels of education.

• The proportion of women in higher paying jobs is much lesser than men.

• The Equal Wages Act provides that equal wages should be paid to equal work. However in almost all areas of work, from sports and cinema, to

factories and fields, women are paid less than men, even when both do exactly the same work.

• In many parts of India parents prefer to have sons and find ways to have the girl child aborted before she is born. Such sex-selective abortions led

to a decline in child sex ratio in the country to merely 927 per 1000 births. This ratio has fallen below 850 or even 800 in some states.

• There are reports of various kinds of harassment, exploitation and violence against women. Urban areas have become particularly unsafe for

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 8

women.

Source: Democratic politics part II, textbook for grade 10 (page 42 and 43)

• Go on to say, “Let’s also look at how well India is faring in these numbers. Even as we talk,

the percentage of elected women members in Lok Sabha is not even 15 per cent.

Percentage of women in some state assemblies is poorer i.e. less than 5 per cent. In fact,

India is among the bottom group of nations in the world when it comes to women

representation in politics. Please put down those numbers too.”

• Further, “Yes, in all of this one argument that we still haven’t negated is that probably men

parliamentarians do understand the challenges of women, and they are solving them too.

So, let us look at two resources and see how true that is. Please make notes.”

Video: The Truth About Women's Pay in Sports

The video shows the problems faced by women in sports even when they are doing the

same jobs as their male counterparts.

Link: YouTube

• Now let’s watch another short video.

Video: Women in Panchayati Raj

Link: YouTube

• Ask the students, “What do you conclude from these two videos?’

• Let students build a connection between the two videos, take about 4-5 responses. Most likely students will respond in the lines of how lack of equal

pay between men and women indicates that men in power haven’t been able to solve the challenges of women or haven’t focused on them enough.

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 9

• Moreover, from the second video, it looks like women can run governments effectively. All what they need is equal opportunity in politics. It is

important to note that in India, one third of the seats in local government bodies are

reserved for women. This government legislation has led to a cascading impact and

created numerous benefits for everyone.

• It looks like poor representation of women could be a deterring factor. But, the

important question is how do we solve it? Let us figure this out. I want you to quickly

move to page 45 and silently read from second para, first column till the end of the

page. The para begins from, ‘One way to solve this problem…’ Pay attention to the

cartoon too. Make notes.

• As a conclusion, let’s see this video on women in American politics. In the second half,

the video talks about how having a more gender balanced government can help

society tackle issues more hollitstically.

• Video: What happens when women win?

Link: YouTube

3. Taking a lead!

Time: 20 minutes

Materials required: Projector, three charts with headings- ‘Fighting gender inequality at Home’, ‘Fighting gender inequality at School’, ‘Fighting gender

inequality at Neighbourhood’, sketch pens/markers.

Note to the teacher:

In the last part of the lesson, students take on the Active Citizenship hat and come up with ways in which they can promote gender equality at home, at

school, workplace and in their locality. The charts are to be prepared and pinned on three different boards so that students can read them often.

Facilitation notes:

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 10

• So, let’s continue to see how we as individuals can contribute to promoting gender equality in the spaces that we live in. I want you to form groups of

two, either as two girls or as two boys. The purpose of girls pairing only with girls and boys pairing only with boys is that it will help you think both

from the understanding of your gender and society at large. In case there is odd number of students, then one student please join another group.

• In these respective groups of boys and girls, come up with ways in which you as girls or boys can promote gender equality at home, at school and in

your neighborhood. Ensure that all of you have the points that are discussed in the group. Once you complete your points, walk up to the respective

chart and write your points with the sketch-pen.

• “If you can see your point on the chart, then instead of re-writing it, put a tick mark next to it. Please do not repeat the same point.”

• Go on to say, “This also means that you have to read all the points before you write.”

• Give students about 5-6 minutes to complete the jot down the points. Give another 5 minutes to add all their points on the chart papers.

• Remind them, “Please come up with actionable points: things you can do as students.”

• Once all students have completed the task, invite them back to sit. Read some of the points from the charts.

Potential points:

Gender equality at school:

1. Promote all kinds of extracurricular for both girls and boys.

2. Discourage stereotypes in class. Insensitive comments like ‘he cries like a girl’, or ‘girls don’t play sports’ etc. should consciously be controlled.

3. Form all girls’ sports teams in schools.

4. Educate your friends about gender roles and how they may be perpetuating these biases.

5. Have discussions on gender sensitivity and inclusivity.

Gender equality at home:

1. Encourage the men of the house to help out with household chores.

2. As boys, help your mothers in housework, even if there is no expectation from you at home.

3. Talk about gender sensitivity at home.

4. If you have younger siblings or cousins, then be extra careful with them. Encourage girls and boys to do whatever activities they like.

Gender equality in neighborhoods:

1. Conduct a street play about gender equality.

2. Form play groups with girls and boys so that they can learn from each other.

3. Whenever possible, educate neighbors and their children about gender stereotyping.

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 11

4. If you see child marriage or female foeticide happening around, report it to

the police. (call ChildLine-1098, approach national commission of women)

• (These charts can continue to be pinned on the boards and can be used as a

reminder to students from time and again. On a daily or weekly basis, you can

invite students to one of the charts and ask them to find the one point that they

have been following and the one point they haven’t. Ask them to be more mindful

to follow that one point that they could not. They can also add new points on the

chart.)

• To conclude this activity, let’s consider two example of incredible women who

decided to raise their voices against gender inequality in their own ways.

• Video: How Meghan Markle become an advocate for women’s rights

The video talks about how the actress at 11 years decided to raise her voice, even as a child, against women’s inequality.

Link: YouTube

• My second example is Savitribai Phule: “She was a Dalit woman and a pioneer of feminism in India. She was also the country’s first female teacher who went on to set up 17 more schools that imparted education to women of all castes. She worked alongside her husband and other women, to abolish caste and gender discrimination. She also set up the 'Balhatya Pratibandhak Griha' to prevent female infanticide, and campaigned against the killing of widows and pregnant rape victims. Savitribai Phule is highly revered by advocates of the feminist movement in India today.” Source: YourStory

• These are just two women. However, men and women across the world are fighting against injustices and working for equality. Not just for the benefit

of women but also men.

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 12

Section III: Assessment

Time: 5 minutes

Below is a picture released by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, India. Interpret the picture and answer the questions below.

(a)What according to you is the picture signifying? (0.5)

(b) Can you identify a practice from our society which may lead to a

condition represented by the picture? (0.5)

(c) What could be an implication of this condition? What it may lead to? (1)

(d) Suggest two policy level changes that can combat this challenge? (2)

Section IV: Closure

Time: 2-3 minutes

Recap by the teacher

• Every community knows their problems the best. Women understand their

challenges well, just like a group of students do.

• The challenges faced by women cannot be solved by men alone.

• As of now, women barely representation in politics, and we need more

women ministers and parliamentarians.

• While policy changes are desired and would lead to significant progress in our

quest for gender equality, such changes take time. And simply introducing a

policy will not change people’s minsets.

• We need to fight for the cause of equality everyday in big and small ways.

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 13

Section V: Homework

1. Mention different aspects of life in which women are discriminated or disadvantaged in India.

2. What is the status of women’s representation in India’s legislative bodies?

3. Choose the right option:

When we speak of gender divisions, we usually refer to:

• Biological difference between men and women

• Unequal roles assigned by the society to men and women

• Unequal child sex ratio

• Absence of voting rights for women in democracies

In India seats are reserved for women in

• Lok Sabha

• State legislative assemblies

• Cabinet

• Panchayati Raj bodies

Section VI: Additional resources

Resources for teachers

1. Video: America’s most powerful female politicians talk about how they broke the glass ceiling

The short video presents some prominent american female politicians and their learnings in their journey to political prominence.

Link: YouTube

2. Article: Prison of Patriarchy

The article talks about how patriarchy has resulted in implications of various aspects of the socio-economic lives of women.

Link: The Hindu

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 14

3. Article: Women in Indian Patriarchy

The chapter details the evolution of Indian society and how gender roles have changed over the years.

Link: Website

4. Articles: The 5 gender initiatives you should know about

The article mentions examples of some really impactful work that is happening around the world to promote gender equality in

various sectors.

Link: The every girl

Resources for students

1. Article: Women in politics

The interactive website shows how the number of women in politics has changed around the world in the past years.

Link: OECD.org

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 15

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